I always level up lords because you're forced to select them. If you're going to show up for a battle, you may as well be useful!

I mean Lords, in fairness, are already pretty useful. They often recruit other characters and seize maps. In some games, they're the only unit who can visit villages. There isn't a huge need for Lords to be combat units when it typically requires a lot of EXP and a promotion which usually only occurs as a result of a story. Units who already have uses can be given fewer kills and EXP, which in turns makes other units who typically turn out to be better combat units end up better because those kills can be funneled into those units.

(Experience economy is interesting and I think it deserves a bit of merit in overall strategy.)

It does, especially in FE7 where your lords promote in the dying chapters (iirc the first Heaven Seal is in ch20 of about 30 max?). It's also worth noting that Lyndis is only technically your main lord for ten chapters of somewhat easy tutorial. After that she's a non-forced lord who isn't that great as a unit: the mani katti's effective bonuses are basically cancelled by the fact it's basically permanently at WTD when the effectiveness kicks in. By the point at which you get Lyn for the main story, she's sort of irrelevant.

I'm currently playing Awakening where you can get unlimited experience points by fighting skirmishes on the map. I miss the limited amount of experience that's available in games like FE7. It adds a whole new layer of strategy to the game, forcing you to make tough decisions on who to bench, who to invest in etc.

I'm currently playing Awakening where you can get unlimited experience points by fighting skirmishes on the map. I miss the limited amount of experience that's available in games like FE7. It adds a whole new layer of strategy to the game, forcing you to make tough decisions on who to bench, who to invest in etc.

I'm a purist in that I like to play games to their fullest extent within the boundaries of the rules. Avoiding skirmishes feels like an artificial challenge. It's like when I complain about certain strategies in Civilization 6 being overpowered and hoping that the developers nerf it in a patch. People sometimes counter my complaint by saying: "You know, you can just not use that strategy" but that's just an artificial solution. I'd prefer it if the Fire Emblem developers eliminated skirmishes entirely and forced people to budget their armies.

That said, it's not like I'm abusing skirmishes to a huge extent. I mostly just want to level up support conversations and see people's children from the future.

It's much more accomodating to have the difficulty be determined by the player rather than the game. It gets more sales and more replays becausw you decide how bad it's going to be. Skirmishes aren't likely to go anywhere I don't think, they'll just remain optional so that if you want to just charge through the chapters a la typical FE, it's entirely doable.

I kind of get what he's saying though, like if something is in a game I feel almost obligated to use it/do it if it doesn't take that much effort. The skirmishes in Awakening were a good way to get money I took advantage of that. The only time I really don't do optional stuff in a game is when it requires Internet connection